Earth & SkyGreek → English
Naphtha
/ˈnæfθə/noun
A volatile flammable liquid distilled from petroleum or coal tar.
The Greek roots
νάφθα
náphtha
flammable earth-oil
Literally: “the stuff that flares up”
Follow a root:νάφθα2 words
The story of the word
Greek took νάφθα from Persian, and behind Persian naft stands Akkadian naptu, from a verb meaning to flare up. Dioscorides and Strabo use the word for the flammable seepage around Babylon and the Caspian shore, which the ancient world treated as a marvel and a weapon rather than a fuel. Modern chemistry narrowed it to the light fractions of crude, and the same word is buried inside napalm, coined in 1942 from the naphthenic and palmitic acids used to thicken petrol.
- How it travelled
- Akkadian → Persian → Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 14th century
Same family
naphthalenenapalm
In a sentence
The lamp burned naphtha and filled the shed with a smell nobody could get out of their coats.